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- The Supreme Court has ruled that that cruelty under Section 498A is a continuing offence, considering the facts and circumstances of each case. The Supreme Court has said that women can file dowry harassment cases from the place where they are currently sheltered after leaving or being driven out of their matrimonial home.
- The SC observed that the adverse psychological trauma and mental agony of a woman is attributable to the cruelty committed in matrimonial home and thus is a continuing offence.
- The Supreme Court’s judgement came on a plea filed by Rupali Devi against the Allahabad High Court judgement which dismissed her plea to file a dowry harassment case from her parents’ house
- In 1983, Section 498-A was added to IPC to curb the menace of cruelty to married women, which often led to dowry deaths. Under the section, cruelty to a woman by her husband or any relative of her husband is punishable with an imprisonment for a term of three years and also with fine.
- The Indian Government also enacted Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act in 2005. Domestic violence under the act includes actual abuse or the threat of abuse whether physical, sexual, verbal, emotional or economic. The Act covers all women who may be mother, sister, wife, widow or partners living in a shared household.
